As a matter of fact, I do. I’ve played it solo for a bit. Not sure how familiar you are with the game but one of the big things in SotS are Investigative Ability (IA) spends which let you declare things about reality. One category of IAs are Allegiances, i.e., your pull on various groups in the city.
When playing with a single character (which is usually the case solo), I found it helpful to invest a bit more in Allegiances. It’s an easy way to get help on things the character is not skilled at. E.g., if you have a couple points in the Thieves’ Guilds, you can call that many times on your thief friends to help you.
When it comes to playing without a GM (solo or in a group), SotS has some elements which make it easy, and some which make it a bit tricky. IA spends already give players story-generating power so that’s a plus. You often can simply declare stuff as player anyway, which bridges some of the gap between player and GM.
Where it is tricky is the investigative aspect. The basic tenet of Gumshoe is that you never roll for perception/clues. If you have a given skill, you’re always successful. E.g., if you have Nobility, you will always notice clues related to your knowledge of nobles. I found that investigations are particularly difficult to run solo for me because you discover things as you go. How I solved it in SotS was that I was looking at the IAs my character had and asked questions of the scene with their IAs in mind. Then I used some oracle to give me answers (I think it was oracles from Ironsworn but it doesn’t really matter), and I pieced the mystery together as I went.
hmm, yes, i think i follow. it is the case that mysteries will never have a pre-determined outcome, but instead the outcome emerges and is "made coherent" via play and the player. Like "retro-active causality".
Love that your award categories are a bit different from the usual categories! Definitely going to be checking out some of these games.
You're right about the Eco Mofos discord, I think it might be one of the most wholesome forums on the internet. 😁
curious if you have any thoughts on running swords of the serpentine solo or gm-less?
As a matter of fact, I do. I’ve played it solo for a bit. Not sure how familiar you are with the game but one of the big things in SotS are Investigative Ability (IA) spends which let you declare things about reality. One category of IAs are Allegiances, i.e., your pull on various groups in the city.
When playing with a single character (which is usually the case solo), I found it helpful to invest a bit more in Allegiances. It’s an easy way to get help on things the character is not skilled at. E.g., if you have a couple points in the Thieves’ Guilds, you can call that many times on your thief friends to help you.
When it comes to playing without a GM (solo or in a group), SotS has some elements which make it easy, and some which make it a bit tricky. IA spends already give players story-generating power so that’s a plus. You often can simply declare stuff as player anyway, which bridges some of the gap between player and GM.
Where it is tricky is the investigative aspect. The basic tenet of Gumshoe is that you never roll for perception/clues. If you have a given skill, you’re always successful. E.g., if you have Nobility, you will always notice clues related to your knowledge of nobles. I found that investigations are particularly difficult to run solo for me because you discover things as you go. How I solved it in SotS was that I was looking at the IAs my character had and asked questions of the scene with their IAs in mind. Then I used some oracle to give me answers (I think it was oracles from Ironsworn but it doesn’t really matter), and I pieced the mystery together as I went.
It wasn’t the easiest but certainly workable.
hmm, yes, i think i follow. it is the case that mysteries will never have a pre-determined outcome, but instead the outcome emerges and is "made coherent" via play and the player. Like "retro-active causality".
Yes, you got it.
Thank you so much. I’m honoured